EUROPEAN NGO COUNCIL ON DRUGS & DEVELOPMENT

Lange Nieuwstraat 145, 2000 Antwerpen, Belgium

Telephone: +32 (3) 226 4511/Telefax: +32 (3) 226 3476/ e-mail: encod@glo.be

To all organisations interested in becoming a member of the International NGO Coalition for Just and effective drugs policy

Antwerpen, 1.4.98

Dear friends,

Herewith I would like to send you just a short report on our meeting in Vienna of 15 and 16 March 1998, with the following elements:

1. Final elaboration of the Manifiesto 'For a just and effective policy on drugs' and planning of activities at the UNGASS meeting in New York.

2. Report on the Miniforum, organised by the Vienna NGO Committee on Narcotic Drugs, on NGO participation at UNGASS

3. Recommendations for those of you who wish to participate at UNGASS/related events. PLEASE NOTE THAT ACCREDITATION PROCEDURES SHOULD BE STARTED BEFORE 10 APRIL 1998!!!!

This report is sent in two languages: Spanish and English. If you would like to receive the Spanish version, please contact ENCOD's secretariat.

Due to time limits, it is kept relatively short. If some details are unclear, please do not hesitate the secretariat as well.

Hoping to hear from you soon, kind regards,

Joep Oomen (with the help of Ken Bluestone)

Annex: Definitive text Manifesto

1. On the final elaboration of the Manifesto 'For a just and effective policy on drugs' and planning of activities at the UNGASS meeting in New York.

On Sunday 15 March, from 16.00 o'clock onwards (we finished at 1.30, Monday morning!) some 16 representatives from 12 NGO's from Europe, Latin America and Africa met at the VIDC in Vienna to discuss the final elaboration of the Manifesto of the ICN that should be presented at UNGASS and at related events. There were 52 amendments to the original text, and it would take too long to explain why some were approved and others were not. The general feeling is that the original spirit of the text from Turin has been maintained, and that the new text intends to formulate our message in a better way leaving less space for wrong interpretations. Although it is not 'God's word', the people present at the meeting believe it is the best possible result when trying to obtain consensus between various groups that are so diverse and different from each other.

Even more important then the text of the Manifesto, are the activities that we are planning to do with it. First of all, we hope that the text will be diffused as much as possible in the coming weeks. TNI, ASK and Gruppo Abele promised to elaborate a version in resp. Dutch, German and Italian, we are still hoping for a Frenchspeaking partner to translate it into French. From the 1st of May onwards, we will start approaching newspapers worldwide in order to get publicity for it.

At UNGASS itself, the Manifesto will of course play a central role in our activities there: see point nr. 2 of this report. We will also contact the 'other' Coalition, those of the 'Alternatives to the Drugs War' (mostly formed by anti-prohibitionist movements from the US, Australia and Western Europe), to suggest them that our Manifesto could be used as a tool to proposing those alternatives, an element that until now has been absent in their declarations. Hopefully, we will thus be able to form a 'coalition of coalitions', or at least, facilitate the signing of both declarations by the members of each coalition and coordinate the appearance of both groups in the same events in New York.

On the issue of who could represent the Coalition in New York, we count with the following institutions/persons, as they seem to have more or less ensured their travel and lodging expenses already: for ENCOD, Martin Jelsma (TNI-Netherlands), Ken Bluestone (CIIR-United Kingdom) and Tomas Montoya (GfbV-Austria), for Accion Andina, Ricardo Vargas (CINEP-Colombia) and Theo Roncken (Accion Andina-Bolivia), for SHARAN (India), Luke Sampson, for

Drugs Consumers, Martin Barriuso (Coordinadora por la Normalizacion del Cannabis- Spain) and Andrea Efthimiou (Drugs Users Rights Forum - United Kingdom). Due to the absence of crop producers and to a relative lack of gender balance in this delegation, we would like to guarantee the presence of at least two women (possibly, Rosa del Olmo - University Caracas and

Omayra Morales - CAPC - Colombia), but we would have to look for funding still. This will happen in the coming weeks after we know who are able and willing to come and if they can be accredited.

2. Report on the Miniforum, organised by the Vienna NGO Committee on Narcotic Drugs, on NGO participation at UNGASS

On Monday 16 March, some of the Coalition's delegates assisted the Miniforum organised by the Vienna NGO Committee on Narcotic Drugs to arrange for NGO Participation in the UNGASS meeting. These are the main conclusions:

NGOs will not address the General Assembly, however, an opportunity will be provided for NGOs to make presentations to the so-called Ad Hoc Committee of the Whole. It is unclear as to how this participation will take place, nor how many contributions will be allowed. The secretariat of the ODCCP will be working directly with the NGO Committees of NY and Vienna to develop this aspect of NGO participation. More information will be made available at a later date. NGOs will be given the opportunity to circulate statements to the participants of the Special Session as well.

Two quasi-official NGO Committees based in New York and Vienna have obtained permission to use Conference Room 4 within the UN building as a space dedicated to NGO activities during all three days of the Special Session. This space is entitled the "NGO Forum". The NGO Committees would like to use this space to enable NGOs to: present their programmes; enhance or increase their networking with other NGOs and Government delegations;

learn from one another via exchange of experiences, and to debate on special subjects.

The space being provided is 1,000 square metres. The Managing Committee comprised of representatives of both NGO Committees will decide how this space is to be organised on the basis of proposals they receive from interested NGOs. The audience for such an event would be limited to those accredited to participating in the Special Session (government delegations, official observers, accredited NGOs, accredited press).

Any European NGO wishing to participate in this space must send a one page proposal to the Vienna NGO Committee by April 10th. Included in this proposal must be a description of the event/activity being proposed as well as the names of the individuals who will be participating in it.

ENCOD (Ken Bluestone) will put together a one-page proposal for submission to the NGO forum which would involve a panel discussion/presentation of testimonies over the impact of drugs control policies.

There are two proposals that we could put forward:

1) Limited Participation:

Panel consists of three people who present the manifesto and give testimonials of the impact of drugs control policies: 1 representative of ENCOD; 1 representative of coca growers; 1 representative of drugs consumer groups.

2) Wider Participation:

Same as No. 1, only with representatives from different geographic regions (Africa, Asia, Middle East). In addition, it was also proposed that a representative of the coca growers could participate in the high-level event being organised by the Transnational Radical Party as part of their contribution. This point will have to be discussed further with them as soon as we have a clearer idea of who will come.

All of the above proposals depend entirely on our obtaining financing for those representatives from the South and Europe who can not pay their own way. An ENCOD working group will have to be formed to deal with this issue.

- Alternatives to the NGO Forum

In addition to the activities being planned by the International Coalition, several other groups are looking at the Special Session with a critical eye. In particular, the Global Anti-Drugs War Days Coalition (?) (Harry Bego, Adam Smith, et al), the Lindesmith Centre and Transnational Radical Party (TRP) come to mind. While in Vienna, we met with Marco Cappato and Marina Szikora of the TRP and a representative of the Lindesmith Center.

All were concerned at the apparent direction that the NGO Forum was taking and the particular lack of democratic decision making processes over the use of that space.

In order to address the problem of NGO Committee control over available space, it was decided that we would explore the option of finding an alternative venue in which the three/four main critical responses (see above) to the Special Session would present their views to the general public. Each organisation would present their critique of the current drugs-control regime independently so as to avoid conflicts of interest between coalitions/groups/etc. The diversity of criticism and proposals would be presented in a positive light as a demonstration of the broad-based support for re-thinking drugs policy.

The focus of our joint activities would be an afternoon event which would include a 45 minute press conference in which each group presents its position and answers questions. The rest of the afternoon could also include panel discussions, etc. The possibility of linking this event with the Lindesmith Center's visits to needle exchange programmes was also raised. Lindesmith Center also said that it may be able to help organise an alternate venue.

We left open the possibility for more involved activities, should there be direct infrastructural support from NY/US based groups. Above all, it is essential that we be realistic about our resources, time and the amount of partnership we have on the ground in NY and work from that basis. The current proposal would provide a concrete means for having a public event while taking advantage of the shared resources of several groups. Marco Cappato from TRP, Michael Risher from the Lindesmith Centre and Ken Bluestone will maintain in contact to prepare the logistical details of this event.

3. Recommendations for those of you who wish to participate at UNGASS/related events.

All persons wishing to have direct access to the UN building during the UNGASS (whether to participate in the NGO Forum or to observe the Special Session) must have their names registered through the ODCCP (Organisation for Drug Control and Crime Prevention) office in Vienna and must have confirmation in writing of their approval by this office in order to enter the UN building in New York. Due to security measures, this point is essential. Requests for accreditation should be received before April 10, 1998.

The contact person in this office is:

Eileen McCaffrity

ODCCP

PO Box 500A 1400

Austria - Europe

Tel: +43 1 21345 5638

Fax: +43 1 21345 5866

Accreditation will be granted to organisations who fulfill the following requirements. All NGOs must send in a formal request for accreditation to the Special Session:

a) NGOs with ECOSOC Consultative Status and NGOs which have already been accredited to meetings of the preparatory body will receive automatic approval;

b) NGOs which are associated with the UN Department of Public Information;

c) NGOs included in the UNDCP Directory of Non-Governmental Organisations Working in Drug Demand Reduction, or have submitted the related fact sheet since the directory was published in 1996;

d) NGOs enjoying a working relationship with the UNDCP (that is, by participating in the implementation of a UNDCP-funded project or other activity).

Any NGO fulfilling these criteria may nominate more than one delegate to participate on behalf of the NGO, but if the NGO response is substantial, numbers of delegates may be restricted.

Those people who do not fulfill these criteria but who wish to participate, are requested to contact ENCOD as soon as possible, in order to find out if there is a way to accredit them through one of the participating NGO's with a consultative status.